Europeans, Agriculture and the Common Agricultural Policy

136 Pages·2007·2.28 MB·English

by  Adel Holdampf

Special Eurobarometer
European
Commission
Europeans, Agriculture and the
Common Agricultural Policy
Fieldwork November-December 2006
Publication March 2007

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S The interpretations and opinions contained in it are solely those of the authors.
Europeans, Agriculture and the Common Agricultural Policy - 2006 DG AGRI

INTRODUCTION............................................................................................ 3
OVERVIEW OF RESULTS............................................................................... 4
1. PERCEIVED IMPORTANCE OF AGRICULTURE AND THE RURAL AREAS.. 5
2. AGRICULTURE AND THE COMMON AGRICULTURAL POLICY: PUBLIC
KNOWLEDGE, AWARENESS AND INFORMATION........................................... 9
2.1 Objective knowledge of agriculture in the EU................................. 9
2.2 Awareness of the Common Agricultural Policy.............................. 12
2.3 Current level of information.......................................................... 16
3. EUROPEAN UNION AGRICULTURAL POLICY: PRIORITIES AND
PERFORMANCE........................................................................................... 22
3.1 Main priorities for European Union agricultural policy....................... 22
3.1.1 Overall Results ............................................................................ 22
3.1.2 Patterns in opinion.................................................................... 24
3.1.3 Analysis of individual priorities ................................................. 26
3.2 Performance of the Common Agricultural Policy on citizens’
priorities.................................................................................................. 29
3.2.1 Overall results........................................................................... 29
4. THE REFORMED COMMON AGRICULTURAL POLICY............................. 34
4.1 Opinion on the cross-compliance mechanism.................................... 34
4.1.1 Environmental standards............................................................. 34
4.1.2 Animal welfare standards............................................................ 37
4.1.3 Food safety standards................................................................. 40
4.2 The role of farmers in society........................................................... 42
4.3 Assessment of recent developments of the CAP............................ 47
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Europeans, Agriculture and the Common Agricultural Policy - 2006 DG AGRI

5. THE EUROPEAN UNION AGRICULTURE BUDGET................................. 51
5.1 Assessments of the current budget level.......................................... 51
5.2 Future Common Agricultural Policy budget level........................... 57
6. INFORMATION ON AGRICULTURE AND EUROPEAN UNION
AGRICULTURAL POLICY ............................................................................. 60
6.1 Most trusted sources on agricultural topics...................................... 60
6.2 Desire to be more informed on agricultural topics............................ 64
CONCLUSION.............................................................................................. 68

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Europeans, Agriculture and the Common Agricultural Policy - 2006 DG AGRI

INTRODUCTION............................................................................................ 3
OVERVIEW OF RESULTS............................................................................... 4
1. PERCEIVED IMPORTANCE OF AGRICULTURE AND THE RURAL AREAS.. 5
2. AGRICULTURE AND THE COMMON AGRICULTURAL POLICY: PUBLIC
KNOWLEDGE, AWARENESS AND INFORMATION........................................... 9
2.1 Objective knowledge of agriculture in the EU................................. 9
2.2 Awareness of the Common Agricultural Policy.............................. 12
2.3 Current level of information.......................................................... 16
3. EUROPEAN UNION AGRICULTURAL POLICY: PRIORITIES AND
PERFORMANCE........................................................................................... 22
3.1 Main priorities for European Union agricultural policy....................... 22
3.1.1 Overall Results ............................................................................ 22
3.1.2 Patterns in opinion.................................................................... 24
3.1.3 Analysis of individual priorities ................................................. 26
3.2 Performance of the Common Agricultural Policy on citizens’
priorities.................................................................................................. 29
3.2.1 Overall results........................................................................... 29
4. THE REFORMED COMMON AGRICULTURAL POLICY............................. 34
4.1 Opinion on the cross-compliance mechanism.................................... 34
4.1.1 Environmental standards............................................................. 34
4.1.2 Animal welfare standards............................................................ 37
4.1.3 Food safety standards................................................................. 40
4.2 The role of farmers in society........................................................... 42
4.3 Assessment of recent developments of the CAP............................ 47
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Europeans, Agriculture and the Common Agricultural Policy - 2006 DG AGRI

5. THE EUROPEAN UNION AGRICULTURE BUDGET................................. 51
5.1 Assessments of the current budget level.......................................... 51
5.2 Future Common Agricultural Policy budget level........................... 57
6. INFORMATION ON AGRICULTURE AND EUROPEAN UNION
AGRICULTURAL POLICY ............................................................................. 60
6.1 Most trusted sources on agricultural topics...................................... 60
6.2 Desire to be more informed on agricultural topics............................ 64
CONCLUSION.............................................................................................. 68

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Europeans, Agriculture and the Common Agricultural Policy - 2006 DG AGRI

INTRODUCTION

For over 50 years the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has been a cornerstone of
EU policy relating to farming and the rural areas. Proposed by the European
Commission in 1960, it aimed to provide a harmonised framework to ensure
adequate supplies, increase productivity and ensure that both consumers and
producers received a fair deal in the market. Over time agricultural priorities have
shifted, for example with concern over Europe’s food self-sufficiency fading
somewhat and food safety/health, environmental and animal welfare concerns
becoming more prominent.

After the switch to direct aids to farmers at the beginning of the 90s, agricultural
policy took on a new dimension in 2003, with this year marking the beginning of a
phase of reform and transformation in the CAP. This has now moved from a
production-based system of subsidies to a market-orientated system where financial
support to farmers is decoupled from production and is also dependent on producers
meeting food safety, quality, environmental, plant health, animal health and welfare
standards.

In this context, the Agriculture Directorate-General of the European Commission has
been keen to measure public opinion on agriculture and the CAP, in order to both see
how citizens view agriculture in general and to gauge reactions to recent
developments.

This survey follows on from other surveys conducted over a long period, most
recently that carried out in 2005 which paid particular attention to the CAP1. The
current survey, as before, was carried out by TNS Opinion & Social, interviewing
24732 citizens in the 25 Member States and Bulgaria and Romania which - at the
time of the survey - had the status of Acceding Countries and have subsequently
become full Members. Interviewing was conducted between the 17th of November
and the 19th of December, 2006. The methodology used is that of Eurobarometer
surveys as carried out by the Directorate General for Communication (Unit for Public
Opinion and Media Monitoring). A technical note on the manner in which interviews
were conducted by the Institutes within the TNS Opinion & Social network is
appended as an annex to this report. This note indicates the interview methods and
the confidence intervals.

This report examines the following themes in turn:

• The importance of agriculture and the rural areas, according to the public.
• Knowledge, information and awareness of agricultural issues and the CAP.
• Priorities of agricultural policy, as envisioned by the public and the performance of
the CAP on these priorities.
• Assessments of recent CAP reforms – in particular ‘cross-compliance’, direct
payments and the role of farmers.
• Opinion on the current EU agricultural budget and its future level.
● Information on agricultural topics – areas the public would like more information on
and sources which are trusted to provide this.

1 Europeans and the Common Agricultural Policy (Autumn 2005), Special Eurobarometer 242, p.11.
http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_242_en.pdf

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Europeans, Agriculture and the Common Agricultural Policy - 2006 DG AGRI

For each of these points, we analyse the results in terms of the European average,
before then considering the breakdown of results by country and by socio-
demographic variables where relevant.
In addition to this, we have systematically cross-analysed the responses to all the
questions with additional classification variables, specifically:

• The importance of agriculture and the rural areas.
• Awareness of the CAP.
● Levels of information on the CAP.

Where questions have been asked on related topics in previous surveys, a
comparison is made with current results. Though this helps place opinion in context,
we have also noted any differences in both the questions and the surveys involved,
as these mean that answers may not be directly comparable.

OVERVIEW OF RESULTS

The following represent the key findings of the study:

● Almost 9 in every 10 (88%) Europeans think that agriculture and the rural areas
are important to the continent’s future.

● Over 7 in 10 (72%) respondents consider themselves to be uninformed on
agricultural issues and over half (54%) have never heard of or read about the CAP.

● The main priorities of the CAP - according to the public - should be ensuring the
health and safety of food products (mentioned by 41%), providing a decent standard
of living for farmers (37%) and ensuring fair prices for consumers (35%).

● The CAP is seen as doing an especially good job at ensuring the availability of
agricultural supplies (33 percentage points more positive answers compared to
negative answers).

● The reduction of payments to farmers based on failing to meet standards (i.e.
‘cross-compliance’) is considered to be justified by a clear majority (between 83%
and 86% depending on the specific standards in question). Meanwhile, over four
times as many believe recent CAP reforms to be a positive development (49%) than
a negative one (11%),

● Just under half of those surveyed believe that the current agriculture budget, at
40% of the overall EU budget, is sufficient (45%). This is more than those who think
it is too low (15%) or too high (16%). Almost 6 in every 10 (58%) think this share
should either stay the same or increase in coming years.

● Exactly half (50%) of all respondents would like to receive more information about
food safety and health, whilst a considerable number would also like to know more
about the effects of farming on the environment (30%) and animal welfare issues
(25%). Consumer and environmental associations are the most trusted source for
such information.

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Europeans, Agriculture and the Common Agricultural Policy - 2006 DG AGRI

1. PERCEIVED IMPORTANCE OF AGRICULTURE AND THE RURAL AREAS

This short opening chapter addresses the issue of the overall importance of farming
and the rural areas to the EU public.

The rural areas are particularly important in terms of territory, with 92% of land in
the EU either rural or ‘intermediate’ in nature. Together, these areas contain over
half (56%) of the EU population, and provide 51% of employment in the EU2.

These statistics highlight the significance of agriculture in the EU economically,
demographically and geographically and are clearly reflected in the findings of this
survey.

- Agriculture and the rural areas are seen of high importance for the future
of Europe -

It is clear that the EU public believes farming and the rural areas to be of
considerable importance to Europe’s future. Almost nine in every ten (88%) of
respondents at EU level answered that they consider these to be important subjects,
with 42% saying that they are ‘very important’ and 46% ‘important’3.

Importance of European Agriculture and the Rural Areas
- % EU25
Of very little
importance DK
1% 5%
Not very
important
6%
Very important
42%
Important
46%

This high level of accorded importance is universal across countries. Even
where the lowest level is seen – in Ireland – exactly three quarters (75%) of
respondents answered ‘important’ or ‘very important’. It is worth noting, however,
that in Ireland and especially in Bulgaria, we see a relatively high ratio of ‘don’t
know’ answers (14% and 17% respectively). This indicates that opinion here is
marginally less clear.

2 Rural Development in the European Union: Statistical and economic information (2006), p.5.
http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/agrista/rurdev2006/RD_Report_2006.pdf
3 QD1. Not everybody shares the same point of view concerning the importance of European agriculture
and the rural areas for our future. Personally, do you think that subject is ... for our future?

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Europeans, Agriculture and the Common Agricultural Policy - 2006 DG AGRI

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Europeans, Agriculture and the Common Agricultural Policy - 2006 DG AGRI

Though there is a lack of precisely comparable trend results, we nevertheless see
from other surveys that this high level of importance has remained more or
less constant over time. Results in the current survey are very similar to those
seen when a similar question was asked in a telephone survey conducted in 2000.
Here an even higher proportion of respondents (92%) said that they considered
these to be important issues4. Meanwhile, as far back as 1988, 90% of the
population answered that they considered agricultural matters to be important for
the future5.

- Age, education and urbanisation are minor influences on opinion -

In terms of demographic factors, we see that – as for results by country –
opinion is fairly homogenous, with agriculture and the rural areas being given
high importance by all segments of the surveyed population. The small degree of
variation in results is largely determined by three factors:

● Age: A higher proportion of ‘very important’ answers is seen amongst respondents
aged 40-54 (46%) and 55+ (45%), compared to those aged 15-24 (34%) and 25-39
(38%).

● Urbanisation: The share of ‘very important’ answers is higher for respondents in
rural village areas (47%) than for those in small/medium size towns (40%) and large
towns (38%).

● Education: A higher level of education looks to make respondents slightly more
likely to say the issues involved are important. Thus 92% of those educated to the
age of 20 and beyond give an ‘important’ or ‘very important’ answer, compared to
84% of those who finished their studies at the age of 15 or earlier.

Again, however, it should be emphasised these represent minor divergences from
the overall results, which show that a strong majority of respondents deem
agriculture and the rural areas to be important issues.

4 The general public’s attitude towards the CAP, Flash Eurobarometer 85 (Autumn 2000), p.4. Note that
the wording for the question in this survey was slightly different with the phrase ‘rural world’ instead of
‘rural areas’. http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/flash/fl85_en.pdf
5 Europeans and their agriculture, Special Eurobarometer 34 (February 1988), p.II. Note that here the
wording was: ‘Whether or not agricultural matters interest you personally, how important do you think
they are for our future?’
http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_034_en.pdf

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